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Between the democratization of housing and the neoliberal responsibilization of citizens:The proliferation of co-housing in Viennese city planning
No full textIn contemporary city planning, self-organized collaborative forms of housing are flourishing. However, in the literature, the increasing incorporation of citizens in housing and planning has been interpreted in very different ways. The research on urban planning has understood the proliferation of co-housing groups as indicating changing participatory demands of citizens on one hand, and as an effort to organize social change on an everyday level on the other. In contrast, critical social researchers have interpreted the rise of collaborative housing not as a democratization, but as a shift of urban governance towards the responsibilization of citizens. In this article, we use these two theoretical perspectives for making sense of the political values that are present in the contemporary proliferation of co-housing groups in Viennese urban planning. The empirical base of our endeavor is a series of qualitative interviews with different stakeholders (city planners, administrators, architects, developers, and neighbors) and members of co-housing groups in the city development area Wildgarten in the South of the city. We conclude that in the Wildgarten, the self-empowerment of citizens goes hand-in-hand with an increasing top-down steering by a neoliberal entrepreneurial city. Furthermore, we found that the co-housing groups tend to willingly accept the hierarchy between planning bodies and themselves, which contradicts the political marketing strategies of social transformation and democratization attached to Wildgarten. Simultaneously, possibly as a consequence from top-down citizen responsibilization, our findings show that co-housing groups often focus more on a democratized group interior than on transforming society at large
Intergroup contact buffers influence of objective and perceived peer norms on prejudice among adolescents
No full textWhile previous research has shown that intergroup contact can serve as a buffer moderating the effect of country-level social norms on intergroup attitudes, there is limited research on proximal norms in this dynamic. During adolescence, proximal norms, i.e. peer norms, become important sources of information and guide intergroup attitudes and behavior. It is an open question whether intergroup contact may also buffer the effect of peer norms. We conducted a two-wave panel study with adolescents testing the buffering effect of objective and perceived peer norms on prejudice. Results showed that the influence of both objective and perceived peer norms only affected prejudice significantly among adolescents who have not made new outgroup contacts, while it was non-significant among those whose contact numbers increased. Overall, findings suggest that intergroup contact might play a crucial role by shielding individuals from peer norms that support prejudice
Exposure of stranded harbour porpoises to trace elements along the coastline
No full textThe total concentrations of 31 metals and metalloids were determined in the liver of 101 harbour porpoises stranded along the Scottish coastline using CV-AFS, ICP-MS and MP-AES techniques. The proportion of male to female animals was 44:57, with an age range of 0.1 to 15-yr. Principal component analysis showed significant differences by sex (p < 0.01) in the concentrations of 42 % of the elements and were higher in male animals. Higher liver content of elements were observed in the adult age group than in the juveniles. Age-related bioaccumulation of Hg (p < 0.0001) was observed similar to what had also been found in the liver of pilot whales stranded on the coast of Scotland. A strong and positive correlation (p < 0.0001) was shown between Hg and Se, RS = 0.93. A similar correlation (p < 0.0001) was observed between Al and Ga in males, RS = 0.85 and females, RS = 0.91. There was limited information on the interrelationships found between B, Li and Sr. Adult mammals had significantly higher Hg:Se molar ratios than the juveniles (p < 0.0001). However, Se was found in molar excess to Hg in all individuals